Reading
Period, Final Exams, and Other Jokes
Near
the end of every semester, without fail, two topics rear their heads
from out of the academic policy dust and beg to be considered by
those in charge of educational plans and policies at Oberlin. The
first is self-scheduled exams. The second is the travesty that has
become reading period. As students scramble to complete an increasing
amount of work with little or no remittance in class schedule and
travel plans on the horizon, they once again turn to the Educational
Plans and Policies Committee for help, hoping that their pleas will
not fall on deaf ears.
The EPPC and General Faculty seem to be worried that the student
body is doing too much work, as evidenced by their attempts to change
the credit system. Either the number of credits needed to graduate
will be lowered or the credits per class increased. This will allegedly
accomplish three things: parity with similar colleges in terms of
workload, more crucial sleep time for students and the ability to
actually attend class and learn things. If EPPC really cared about
these things, it would first make changes in exams and reading period.
In the case of the former, the schools draconian policy of
exam scheduling continues unabated. The system does protect us from
four-hour exams and interminable take-homes, but at the cost of
our schedules and our teachers schedules. A student may have
one test on the 18th and another on the 21st, with nothing in between,
yet be unable to reschedule the second exam. Assigned times are
simply no longer feasible. Oberlin has an Honor Code. Under this
Code, teachers cannot even be in the room while tests or quizzes
are going on. This seems the ideal set-up for self-scheduled exams.
Teachers arent even present for testing anyway. Wellesley,
just to name one of the many other schools with an honor system,
has self-scheduled exams. Self-scheduled exams are simply more convenient
for teachers, students, parents, and thats just about everybody
that matters.
With regard to reading period, the whole school agrees its
a problem. There was even a question about it on the latest Student
Senate referendum. Whatever the student vote on the subject, it
will probably be buried just as the overwhelmingly positive vote
on co-ed rooms was. Reading period is not so much a
period as a blip on our collective watches. Four days, including
a weekend: a weekend when we wouldnt be going to class anyway,
so what a break that is. Teachers assign homework and reading literally
up to the last day of classes, giving their students little time
to work on long-term assignments or study for big, comprehensive
exams. The students then neglect classes and day-to-day work to
do the work they wont have time to prepare during reading
period. A more realistic reading period is absolutely essential.
To go back to the comparative approach, Oberlin likes to refer to
itself as one of the Baby Ivies in terms of rigor, and the Adult
Ivies all have week-long reading periods. That does not include
the weekend.
Oberlin is an institution of higher learning. Everything we do should
be geared toward the goal of making it an environment in which everyone
is free to do exactly that. Yes, lessening the workload may free
up our time so that we can do the work for the classes we do have
more conscientiously. But plenty of people are doing fine with five
classes a semester. Meanwhile, some students sit around for three
days waiting for a single exam, and countless more skip a whole
weeks worth of classes (cost: $77 dollars a class meeting
and countless educational opportunities) and do a negligible amount
of reading in order to write a paper due at the end of reading period.
In these areas, Oberlin is run more like an elementary school than
a college.
|